Stories by Mel Cooke/Gleaner Writer

Tarrus 'Singy Singy' Riley describes himself as an independent artiste. That was the situation before his breakthrough Parables in 2006. That album, features She's Royal, Beware and Stay With You and 13 years later it holds pride of place among his...

Actress Karen Harriott, sums up the difference between performing for the stage and the screen in terms of size. "Film is subtle, so the movement for film is much, much smaller (than for theatre). The screen is intimate, it is in your face, you can'...

Come Boxing Day (December 26,2018), there will be an expansion in the age range of thespians normally seen on stage when the curtains rise on the annual calendar of Jamaican theatrical productions.While DJ Piper and the Rat Pak is not currently...

Under a canopy of tree branches which allowed through strings of lights to create the illusion of a closer constellation, the latest edition of the Apollo Series was staged at The Haven on Hillcrest Avenue last Saturday night.Throughout the concert...

The premise of Nine Night is obvious from the early lines. Set in England, it opened at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts last weekend and continues this Friday through Sunday, October 21. It lies in the British accent of...

The Stars R Us concert series, which started in October 2000 at Mas Camp (then on Oxford Road, New Kingston), focuses largely on performers who were clicking with concert audiences and swiping hit song content from everyday happenings,long before...

Owen 'Blakka' Ellis saw a picture of his Uncle Alton Ellis, inside singer Freddie McGregor's Big Ship studio in Havendale. His uncle had hits that included; Rocksteady, Muriel, and Willow Tree. He and the group of students he accompanied, along with...

Teaching practice is part and parcel of the potential educator's training process. However, while every teacher is in effect making a presentation every time they step into a classroom and face the students, teachers involved in drama finds...

Salim Browne and Krysten Henry came to the bass guitar via different paths. Henry started out playing keyboards, like her mother, but tells The Gleaner: "I was always watching my father playing bass. I felt like I was playing the keyboard for...

Whether sitting in the driver's seat of a car between Montego Bay and Kingston or sitting in the passenger seat of an aeroplane from Canada to Jamaica, Douglas Prout has long been accustomed to making extended round trips to direct theatrical...

If it seems like Popcaan's Forever album has been at the No. 6 spot on Billboard's listing of top reggae albums eternally. that's because it has been there for what seems like - well, forever. It has actually sat in that slot for three consecutive...

Somebody has got to be making money from the number of music events being held in Jamaica - and not only the providers of mood-enhancing accessories - alcohol, marijuana, blow-up pools (for the wild water editions), see-through blouses and slingshot...

Yaniq Walford and Michael Barnett generally engage with different aspects of Jamaican popular music. The former immersed in dancehall events as an integral part of Bass Odyssey sound system, and the latter famed for his organisation of the Startime...

Since 2010, Michael Barnett has staged close to 50 Let's Go Dancin' parties in Jamaica - some of them charity-based for organisations such as the Kiwanis Club.Before it crosses the half century mark, the series will make its debut in Atlanta - in...

When he wanted to get into a rehabilitation centre to deal with his drug addiction, Errol Fabien was a well-known entertainment figure in his home country, Trinidad and Tobago. As it turned out, it was the actor and comedian's popularity that proved...

Owen 'Blakka' Ellis laughs as he says Errol Fabien "never answer we" when he and Samara Johnson tried to engage him during the approximately two hours it took them to walk from the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, to Emancipation Park, New...

Running the Jamaica's Best School Band (JBSB) competition brought singer and songwriter Rayven Amani within audition range of the theatre, although she did not get the role she went to Fairfield Theatre in Montego Bay, St James, to try out for."I...

Her siblings gathered around her, all together "on the same piece of earth" for the first time in 20 years, as Nadine Jarrett asked the persons who filled the Vera Moody Hall at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts to...

"Where does slackness come from.Mi no know But a mi dem a put de blame pon Where does slackness come from Mi no know But nobody nah ask Yellowman."- Shabba Ranks I am surprised that there has not yet been a hue and cry over Yellowman being named an...

This weekend, singer Pluto Shervington will be one of the performers at the 2018 Merritone Family Funday in New York City, USA, leaving his Miami, Florida, base for yet another of the many performances he does all over the world. With the annual...

The drums that welcomed celebrants of Irvin 'Carrot' Jarrett's life into the Webster Memorial United Church yesterday afternoon were not beaten at the sonorous pace of a death march. Although the musicians' faces were generally sombre, they played...

As he speaks to The Gleaner about participating in the 2018 Rototom Sunsplash, Festival producer Augustus 'Gussie' Clarke (whose music group includes the Anchor Recording Studio and Dubplate Music Publishers) emphasises innovation. And it is this...

In his Black Uhuru lead-singer role on the 1986 album Brutal, Junior Reid sings "in the morning as I rise/Put on mi track suit and exercise." Close to the end, he adds, "Look how mi big look how mi strong/Mi sey mi mus' live long." In the times I...

Last weekend, the current Jambiz production Right Girl, Wrong Address was advertised for Kingston and Ocho Rios. In 'town', as Jamaica's capital and urban St Andrew are commonly called, it was scheduled for Jambiz's Centrestage Theatre base in New...